Winter diatom blooms in a regulated river in South Korea: explanations based on evolutionary computation

Summary 1. An ecological model was developed using genetic programming (GP) to predict the time‐series dynamics of the diatom, Stephanodiscus hantzschii for the lower Nakdong River, South Korea. Eight years of weekly data showed the river to be hypertrophic (chl. a , 45.1 ± 4.19  μ g L −1 , mean ± SE, n  = 427), and S. hantzschii annually formed blooms during the winter to spring flow period (late November to March). 2. A simple non‐linear equation was created to produce a 3‐day sequential forecast of the species biovolume, by means of time series optimization genetic programming (TSOGP). Training data were used in conjunction with a GP algorithm utilizing 7 years of limnological variables (1995–2001). The model was validated by comparing its output with measurements for a specific year with severe blooms (1994). The model accurately predicted timing of the blooms although it slightly underestimated biovolume (training r 2  = 0.70, test r 2  = 0.78). The model consisted of the following variables: dam discharge and storage, water temperature, Secchi transparency, dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, evaporation and silica concentration. 3. The application of a five‐way cross‐validation test suggested that GP was capable of developing models whose input variables were similar, although the data are randomly used for training. The similarity of input variable selection was approximately 51% between the best model and the top 20 candidate models out of 150 in total (based on both Root Mean Squared Error and the determination coefficients for the test data). 4. Genetic programming was able to determine the ecological importance of different environmental variables affecting the diatoms. A series of sensitivity analyses showed that water temperature was the most sensitive parameter. In addition, the optimal equation was sensitive to DO, Secchi transparency, dam discharge and silica concentration. The analyses thus identified likely causes of the proliferation of diatoms in ‘river‐reservoir hybrids’ (i.e. rivers which have the characteristics of a reservoir during the dry season). This result provides specific information about the bloom of S. hantzschii in river systems, as well as the applicability of inductive methods, such as evolutionary computation to river‐reservoir hybrid systems.